Tuesday, 8 April 2014

Frugal vegetable stock revisited

Home made stock has such lovely depth of flavour. However I only make it occasionally. While it is just a matter of simmering some vegetables, herbs, salt and water, it still takes a bit of energy, space and dishes. Once I do it I always feel such a domestic goddess. I first found the frugal freezer stock idea years ago. Given that I am still using this method, I thought I would revisit the recipe with the tweaking I have made over time.

I have always disliked that making stock involved throwing out the cooked vegies. This frugal stock mainly relies on using the ends and peelings of vegies that we usually throw away anyway. It takes me a while to collect the scraps so I just store them in a plastic bag in the freezer until I have enough scraps or enough energy (whichever comes first).

However I (and some others) found that just using scraps could leave a bitter taste in the stock. I started to add a whole onion and a whole carrot - roughly chopped. Using both scraps and whole vegetables seemed to help balance the flavours.

The other change I made to making stock has been to use my pasta insert for my stockpot. It came as part of my saucepans package when I purchased it years ago and I don't use it for pasta very often. The pasta insert is brilliant for cooking the scraps in so that when the stock is cooled it is quite easy to lift out all the vegie scraps.

Lastly all I need is enough room in the freezer to store all the stock. Once it is in there, it is lovely to be able to take out a tub of stock and toss it into a soup or stew. It is quite a dark stock but adds great flavour to a hearty soup or stock. (Here are some examplesofhowIuseit.) What's not to love about fresh stock, recycling and keeping your costs down. All achieved with very little effort. No wonder it makes me feel like a domestic goddess.

*I keep a plastic bag in the freezer and add vegie scraps as I trim and peel vegies. It can be over a few weeks. The main vegies I make sure are well represented are onion, celery (a stump of a bunch is great), carrots and other root vegies such as celeriac, turnip, parsnip. I also love to include most vegies trimmings such as pumpkin skin and seeds, zucchini ends, leek trimmings, parsley stalks, tomato cores, sweet potato peelings, potato peelings. I avoid brassicas such as cabbage, brussel sprouts, broccoli and cauliflower, because I read somewhere they have a strong flavour that can be quite smelly. The amount of vegies usually varies but is about enough to fill my stockpot once the pasta insert is in it.

Place pasta insert into stockpot (if you have one) and tip frozen vegies inside it. Roughly chop onion, carrot and garlic cloves but don't bother to peel or trim. Throw into the stockpot with frozen vegies. Add water, salt and some fresh herbs (or trimmings of herbs). Taste water to check it is salty enough and add more salt if necessary.

Cover and bring to the boil. Give a good stir (I poke at it from time to time with a wooden spoon). Simmer for about15 to 20 minutes or until vegies are soft enough to crush with a spoon.

Lift the pasta insert out and drain off any stock. (If you don't have a pasta insert, you will need a large collander with a large pot beneath to tip the stock into and drain stock from the vegie trimmings.) Discard trimmings. Ladle stock into containers and freezer if desired. I freeze a lot of mine in 2 cup tubs but I like to have a few different size tubs as well.

18 comments:

Great tips, Johanna. I started making my own stock from veg scraps this year but my only complaint is that my ice cubes taste funny now. :( I like your idea for using the pasta insert. I don't have one myself but what a great idea :)

Thanks emma - when I first made the stock I noticed a few people saying they didn't like it because of the bitterness but I think the whole vegies give enough sweetness which seems to be missing in the scraps

Thanks Lorraine - I find that I don't need to cook the stock too well once the frozen veg come to the boil but my memory of my mum making chicken stock is that it takes ages so a pressure cooker sounds wise

haha! I make veggie stock every week without fail using just scraps! Its good to know that all the little bits that can't otherwise get used have a purpose. And to be honest I would never make veggie stock using whole vegetables purely for the cost! I put all the 'ends' and bits from veggies in a Tupperware fridge smart container and they last the week til my cook up day! It makes the most amazing aroma as it cooks - did you find that? If ever I have visitors when its on they are what smells so good and it always makes my chuckle because its just veggie scraps lol

Thanks Sandy - I am so impressed you make stock every week - I use stock a lot so I can imagine it is really useful to always have it on hand - and great to always use up scraps - I collect scraps sometimes and other times they go in the compost and then I think those odds and ends of vegies are too good to throw out so I start collecting scraps again. I particularly love it when I have lots of interesting root vegies and I know they will make the stock taste great

Thanks Cate - me too - if only I had more room in my freezer I might make this more but my freezer has been crazy busy lately and it seems that maybe I can cook up beans or do stock but struggle to do both

Thanks for dropping by. I love hearing from you. Please share your thoughts and questions. Annoyingly the spammers are bombarding me so I have turned on the pesky captcha code (refresh to find an easy one if you don't like the first one)

Search this Blog

About Me

Recipes and reflections in which our vegetarian heroine dreams of being tall and graceful as a giraffe; being a goddess in the kitchen; and being gladdened by green gadgets, green food and green politics because green is the colour of hope. See About Me for more info.